Hi, I'm Danvers, I'm the Hoof Health Consultant at SmartPak, and today we're going to talk
about basic concerns for hoof health.
To me, those are exercise, environment, maintenance, and nutrition.
Everything else falls into one of those categories.
I do very much like to distinguish between exercise and activity. Exercise is what is
forced on them, activity is what they choose to do. Activity for a horse is pretty much
that they want to walk along in a straight line with their head down and eat 20 hours
out of 24. That is actually a very productive thing. Every step that horse takes engages
and stimulates vascularity and circulation. So, that's a key element. Simply activity.
As simple as walking, and the more he stands in a stall, the more he lives a static life
rather than a dynamic life, the more problems you're going to have with his hoof health.
A lot of times you'll see thrush more prevalent in horses that are standing. Again, circulation
and vascularity promote health. We want to encourage that as much as possible.
I think a dry foot is a healthy foot, but a wet foot manages quite well. Where we have
problems is where we shift constantly from the wet to the dry. And regulating moisture
in your environment is a huge issue for hoof health. The more you can regulate moisture
content, the better off you are. A lot of our horse keeping practices encourage radical
shifts from wet to dry. Bringing them in from a wet pasture to dry shavings in a stall.
Giving them baths three times a day. That's the biggest problem that I see in environmental
issues.
In addition, you also have maintenance. Because we keep these horses in an artificial environment,
no matter how much we try to give them a natural environment, what we do is artificial. And
it requires us to do maintenance. Maintenance is not something that's done every 6 weeks
or every 5 weeks when the farrier shows up. It's something that's done daily. You're cleaning,
inspecting, looking at that horse's foot, and determining what needs to be done, and
then your hoof care provider will come in on a regular schedule and trim the foot, shoe
the foot if necessary, and most importantly balance it and remove distortions that occur
because of our artificial horsekeeping.
In addition to all of those, one of the most important things is nutrition. A good healthy
foot comes from a good healthy diet. Nutrition is a maintenance concern, and it's a daily
concern. It's important to get a horse on a regular program and maintain that program.
If you feel that your horse needs to grow stronger foot, needs to grow more foot, needs
to grow better foot, you're never going to go wrong choosing a supplement. And choosing
a good supplement that's backed by professionals, for me, that means I go to SmartPak.
I hope this was helpful. Stay with us here at SmartPak for more hoof health concerns.